This little vid is so right on about how I feel about how Spirit in the Sky and that “I got a friend in Jesus” and other crap stuck in a pop song. Hardly spiritual like Beethoven or Eno or Grieg’s Piano Concerto in A Minor which don’t even have lyrics.
But, even more than reflecting Spirit in the Sky, this clip says so how we are as a stupid culture of sheep.
I posted here about a Husker Du cover the Mary Tyler Moore show theme song a few years ago. Not sure why, at that point.
This week, Mary Tyler Moore died. Which is a reason think about her. That is why we die, right? We hope someone thinks about us.
In my life I thought a lot about Mary Tyler Moore. I loved the Dick Van Dyke show, I loved the Mary Tyler Moore Show, I liked that she made an issue of Pale Male. MTM ranks in my pantheon of cultural gods, a list I should probably inscribe on the surface of excellent knishes. Or something.
Enjoy the clip, which I think shows just how essential Joan Jett is and how unfortunately that didn’t change the world.
The whole album! Only three minutes! Very funny, conceptually at least, musically clever, with video.
Metal.
I’ve not ever watched one of these Carpool Karaoke before.
There is one great moment in this, but lots of little funniness in this sketch. I’d call it warmhearted, if I didn’t know that would stop you from watching it.
The most surprising aspect of our Spotify subscription is that Diane is crazy for it. She is admittedly not a music junkie like any of us here at the Remnants, in fact I asked what artists she followed and she promptly replied, “none.”
She just likes listening to playlists with high energy stuff she can work out to, and soul and funk from any era she can bop to while driving her car. But, I was surprised when she sent me a link to a song the other day, and I could not help but think of the song as analogous to other generations of horny post pubescent music junkies.
The first instance of song where boys are pleading for sex I could think of was the wonderful Good Golly Miss Molly by the one and only Little Richard, who was certainly clear about the whole sex/music thing in the fifties. This was at a time when saying words like “panties” were verboten on screen, for example, as shown in this clip from the Otto Preminger’s 1959 film, Anatomy of a Murder.
This clip of Richard, covering his tune, released in 1958, a year before Anatomy of a Murder came out, speaks for itself with respect to lyrical content, but this clip was so perfect, as it is Richard live, playing for Muhammad Ali’s 50th birthday. And, well I have been thinking a lot about the loss of the great Ali as well as that of Prince, recently, and what a huge loss to our planet their spirits is.
The 60’s were not much better, and though this is indeed my favorite song by the Beach Boys, it is so lily-white in the Pat Boone’s cover of Little Richard’s Tutti Fruitti, sense, it makes my skin crawl. But, Brian Wilson could only hint at a time when “making love” still was kind of like Laurence Olivier suggesting the wooing of Joan Fontaine in Rebecca meant sweet talk behind a potted plant.
Here is the Beach Boys supporting that in the middle class white world very little changed over the 20 or so years between Rebecca and Don’t Worry Baby (which included that awful Boone shit in the middle of the time span). By the way, I love the song, but is this the worst “video” ever?
But, 50 years after Don’t Worry Baby, reality has struck and the world has simultaneously gone to hell in a hand basket, as witnessed by this song, by Strip Johnny, that popped up on Diane’s “Discover Weekly.” She heard it and just had to share with me.
Truth is, I really like this last song a lot! Not as much as Little Richard, though. At least not just yet.
This is a great little cut from a fun little band.
How can anyone resist this couplet?
“Can’t go west, can’t go east,
I’m stuck in Indianapolis with a fuel pump that’s deceased”
Standing pit tickets for all three days are $1599.
Richard Linklater made a movie called Dazed and Confused, after the Led Zeppelin song, about high school kids partying on the last day of school. His new movie is called Everybody Wants Some!!, after the Van Halen song, about college kids partying on the first day of school.
Like most Linklater films there is lots of chatter. In this case the bros in the movie are members of the best collegiate baseball team in Texas, and they talk about sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll, as well as much else, as they compete in everything they do.
I haven’t seen Dazed and Confused in a long time, so I won’t compare the two movies. What I can say for sure is that Everybody Wants Some!! is warm and funny and exuberant, brilliant and surprisingly deep in an offhanded and precise way (with beer and a bong). Highly recommended.
Plus, it got me to hear My Sharona with fresh ears. Not bad.
As noted, because of the bigoted nature of Okie from Muskogee, I have always had a tough time with Merle Haggard, no matter who he played with, or what he wrote.
But, this answer to Okie, by the Youngbloods was always strong in my heart and made me think there was at least an artistic “fuck you” pointed back at Merle and the song. Olema is a little town near the Pt. Reyes National Seashore, a beautiful area in Northern California.
Here you go.
